Lincoln won sixteen precincts in Franklin, ten of them by margins greater than 55 percent, with support mainly from the urban center of the county and places with the highest numbers of black residents--even though black men could not vote in Pennsylvania.

Lincoln's precincts had a different age profile than Breckinridge's. They included households with a greater proportion of voters (men over 21) in their twenties and thirties. They also included households with a slightly lower average age of the head of household. Lincoln's support in Franklin probably came from the younger voters and places with younger household heads.

Lincoln swept the South Ward of Chambersburg, where nearly all of the black residents in the town lived, and Peters Township, another place in the county with large numbers of black residents. In both Montgomery and Southampton, the largest black settlements outside of Chambersburg, Lincoln won by 60 and 59 percent respectively. In the North Ward of Chambersburg, where many fewer blacks lived, Lincoln won by 56 percent. With the exception of Metal Township, every precinct that went for Lincoln by more than 59 percent was a place where blacks lived in relatively large numbers.

Democratic newspapers vilified the Republicans for courting black voters and black contributions during the 1860 election. Only after the election did the extent of black support for Republicans in Philadelphia and Ohio become clear.

Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1860 Election (map)

African American Residence by Town, Franklin County, 1860 (table)

Franklin County, Pa., Election of 1860 (map)

Election Returns in Augusta, Franklin, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, 1860 (table)

National Election Returns, 1860 (table)

Politics, Franklin County, 1860 Presidential Election Precinct Comparison (table)

Politics, Franklin County, High Breckinridge Precincts in the 1860 Presidential Election (table)

Politics, Franklin County, High Douglas Precincts in the 1860 Presidential Election (table)

Politics, Franklin County, High Lincoln Precincts in the 1860 Presidential Election (table)

Politics, Franklin County, Party Activists, 1859-60 (table)

Politics, Franklin County, 1860 Presidential Voting by Precinct (table)

Related Historiography

Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).

William E. Gienapp, "The Crisis of American Democracy: The Political System and the Coming of the American Civil War," Why the Civil War Came (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996): 81-124.

Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992).

Michael F. Holt, Forging a Majority: The Formation of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, 1848-1860 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969).

Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Knopf, 1982).